The Proud Viscount (22 page)

“Don’t you like it?” she asked, surprised. “It must be three hundred years old.”

“Not so old as your father’s antiquities,” he said, his voice light with amusement. “I’m sure I’ll come to be very fond of it, especially as it faces the bed.”

Jane frowned at the four-poster bed. “That’s not where the bed used to be. It would be much more pleasant with a view out the windows, don’t you think? Otherwise the hanging could be a bit overpowering.”

“An excellent idea.” Rossmere nodded at the two doors leading out of the room. “Which is the dressing room and which the sitting room?”

She led him first into the sitting room, with its walnut wardrobe, lady’s writing desk, and settee. “This would be my room. I’m particularly fond of the painted Norwegian dower chest, though it’s quite modern. From the turn of the century only.”

“Terribly modern,” he agreed as he followed her back out through the door and across the bedchamber to the other room. “And this would be my private room?”

“Yes.” She couldn’t tell whether he was pleased, by either his expression or his tone of voice, both of which were totally devoid of clues. She watched his gaze move from the mahogany desk to the bracket clock, from the hanging cabinet to the daybed. “The wardrobe is a Dutch piece.”

"How do you know these things?” he demanded, his voice indicating he had reached the end of his patience. “Is it obvious to you from looking at them, or is it family history you’re imparting? Richard’s family history, that is.”

Confused as to what had annoyed him, Jane shrugged off the question. “I’ve learned a bit about furniture. It’s another fascination of mine. Will the suite do?”

“Certainly it will do. Which room will your sister Nancy have?”

Relieved, Jane led him back out into the corridor and past the staircase to the opposite side of the house.

* * * *

Rossmere had sat down with Lord Barlow and his solicitor, after the wedding, to detail the marriage settlement, and he had gotten better terms than either Margaret’s or Nancy’s husbands. He knew this because Lord Barlow had attempted to hold him to exactly the same amount of dowry and similar arrangements.

But Jane’s was a different circumstance, as was Rossmere’s and he had bargained for a much larger amount up front so that he could restore Longborough Park and continue to reclaim it from its debt-ridden position. Jane had insisted on being a party to the final agreement. “It’s Graywood that will make the difference,” she’d said. “Its rents and its crop earnings will provide a steady income to apply against the Longborough mortgage. I want it agreed from the start that there will be no question of selling it without my full agreement.”

There could be no reason other than sentiment that she insisted on holding on to the property. Selling it would have instantly freed Longborough from its oppressive mortgage. Instead, Jane arranged that the estate would be passed on to her children, as if this were the most normal thing in the world. Which only meant that another generation would somehow be bound to Richard Bower and his family. It was almost, Rossmere thought, as if Jane were a widow, rather than a spinster.

The same feeling occurred to him in bed with her. And yet there was no doubt whatsoever that she had been a virgin on their wedding night. Rossmere would have liked to rout Richard’s ghost by insisting that they take his bedchamber, but it was more than obvious that Jane found the idea repugnant. If he had insisted, he knew she would have complied, but at a cost to him as well as to herself. He realized that he was not going to banish Richard’s ghost by force.

Marriage had conferred on him the privilege of having intimate relations with Jane, but he was reluctant to press this privilege too far. Not that he wasn’t eager to indulge the passion that seemed to grow with each encounter. It was Jane’s attitude that stopped him, like an invisible barrier. She held her body in readiness for him, but she grew cooler and the less responsive with each experience. The night they moved into Graywood was the worst so far.

Jane wore a light cotton nightdress, nothing like the beautiful and inviting confection she’d worn on their wedding night. She was already in bed when he entered the room in his nightshirt. With careful deliberation she placed a book mark in the volume she was holding and slid it onto a table beside the bed. Her look at him was appraising rather than excited. It lessened his own desire, but didn’t extinguish it altogether. She was, to his awakened eyes, a very alluring woman. Her coolness could not penetrate the insistent strength of his need.

“What were you reading?” he asked as he snuffed the candles on the mantel and her table.

“Oh, just a novel my sister loaned to me. Nothing that would interest you.”

“You seem to think that nothing you do is of interest to me. My lack of knowledge about antiquities and furniture has misled you.”

“Of course it hasn’t.”

“I am not totally lacking in refinement, my sweet. I’m no stranger to the theater or the opera, and I’ve been known to read a work of fiction now and again. Recently my life has not offered many opportunities for the first diversions, and the last I somehow lost my taste for after steeping myself in the latest agricultural journals.” He climbed into bed but remained on his own side.

“I can quite understand that.” She extended her long, thin fingers to touch his shoulder softly. “It can’t have been easy to suddenly find yourself without the resources to enjoy London.”

He shrugged off her touch. “I hate being patronized, Jane. Wealth is scarcely a criterion for one’s value.”

She withdrew her fingers. “I think you know I didn’t mean that. You’ve become very prickly about any reference to your financial position. I wish you wouldn’t hold it against me that marrying me has changed that.”

“It seems to me you’re the one who’s changed since our marriage. I’ve always been prickly, as you call it, about having not a sou to my name.”

Jane shifted down under the covers. “How have I changed?” she asked.

“You’ve become cool and distant. Especially in bed.”

“I’m right here. You know very well that if you approach me, I will allow you whatever you wish.”

“Before we were married, you seemed eager for my approach.”

“Before we were married, you approached me in a more acceptable way.”

“What the devil is that supposed to mean?” he demanded.

“You were interested in pleasing me then. You aren’t any longer.”

“Nonsense. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Jane stared at him. “I beg your pardon. I know exactly what I’m talking about. Since we’ve been married, you've done nothing but please yourself. It’s hardly a fair exchange for my openness.”

“I’ve done precisely what a man is expected to do. If that doesn’t please you, it’s surely not my fault.”

“There’s nothing wrong with me, Stephen, if that’s what you’re implying. I’m familiar with my body’s ability to respond to the proper touch. You have provided very little of the proper touch since our wedding.”

“I suppose Richard provided the proper touch,” he said bitterly.

Jane refused to discuss that particular matter. “You provided it yourself the night before we were married.”

“In lieu of a husband’s right to consummate our intimacy. You’ve been misled about what to expect, because of your particular situation. Since our wedding, I’ve taught you."

“I don’t like being patronized, either, Stephen. I’m trying to explain to you about what would please me. If you’re not interested, I won’t waste my breath.”

“I think you’d best have a talk with your sister,” he muttered as he turned his back to her.

“I will.’’

Chapter 18

Rossmere had been gone again when she awakened. Well, not exactly. She had awakened when he climbed out of bed, but she had pretended to be sound asleep. There was no sense in talking to him right now. They were both too irritated to reach any compromise. When Jane roused from sleep again, it was later than usual, and she rang for Tilly.

As her maid set down the tea, she asked, “Is my sister up yet, do you know?”

“I saw her going in to breakfast, Lady Ja—Rossmere.”

They had all switched to calling her Lady Rossmere, with the usual slips, of course. It sounded so formal, and so final. “Would you ask my sister to come up to me when she’s finished?”

As least Nancy hadn’t lost her own name by her marriage, since Parnham had no title. Jane sighed, realizing that Nancy had lost a great deal more than that. She was still thinking about her sister’s situation when there was a soft tap at the door and Nancy let herself in.

“You look very much the lady of leisure,” Nancy assured her as she took a seat at the foot of the bed.

Jane was sitting up against the pillows in her nightdress, sipping her tea. “I’m pretending it’s my honeymoon,” she said dryly.

“Pretending? I don’t understand.”

“Well, Rossmere never seems to be here, so I’m having a honeymoon of my own, you see,” Jane explained, not quite truthfully. “How are you settling in? Will you want William’s room painted?”

“If you don’t mind. It’s a bit dingy as it is, not used in so many years. Actually, I’d thought perhaps a cheerful print of wallpaper might be just the thing.”

“A lovely idea.” Jane set her cup on the table beside the bed. “You be the one to choose the print. But don’t on any account leave Graywood without a proper escort. Which probably means Rossmere, for the time being. It wouldn’t do for you to run smack into John Parnham in the village and have him pester you. Until we’ve decided that one of the footmen is to be trusted with your care on such an errand, I’d far prefer you go with Rossmere.”

“But it’s such an imposition! What will he think of me?”

“He’ll think you’re a sensible young woman, I promise you."

Nancy sighed and nodded. “I’m sure you’re right. How very extraordinary that you were a determined spinster last month and today you’re married. If anyone had told me you were going to marry Lord Rossmere then, I’d have thought them quite addlepated. He’s a very handsome man.”

“Yes, isn’t he?” Jane asked. She bit back the smile that wanted to emerge at this indication of her sister’s uncertainty as to anything else positive she could say about Stephen Rossmere. Who was Jane to quibble with her reasoning? Jane wasn’t at all certain what to make of him, either. She was staunchly ignoring the signals her heart sent whenever he was anywhere near her. Those excited thuddings were beside the point, if the man couldn’t be trusted.

“I have something very, very personal to ask you, Nancy. It’s not idle curiosity, but a matter of importance to me. And yet it may embarrass you. The subject is one of which no young lady of refinement would speak.”

“Good heavens,” her sister exclaimed, a twinkle appearing in her eyes. “It must surely be something of interest, in that case.”

“Well, it is something only married women are supposed to know anything about.”

Nancy’s cheeks blossomed with a pink flush. “Ah, I see.”

“If you would rather not discuss it, I will quite understand.”

“No, no. I would be willing to tell you what I can, which isn’t much, I fear. I never did catch on to what it was all about.”

Jane’s brows rose at this confession. “You mean, you weren’t really an active participant?”

“Yes, that, but also I simply expected something more to happen.” Nancy shrugged and made a face. “Since there’s little reason to be loyal to someone who has behaved like my husband, I will tell you that each time we were intimate, not much happened at all, for me. John would kiss me and touch me, ahead of time, and then suddenly he would climb on top of me and plunge his, ah, thing into me and I would lie there until it was over. I do understand that is how babies are conceived, so I should be grateful, on behalf of William. But, really, there was something about it that was frightfully disappointing, you know?”

“Yes, I do know. And I don’t understand it, either.”

“But you’re so newly married..."

“Oh, that.” Jane slid her legs off the bed and into the new slippers waiting there. She lifted her wrap from the chair and tossed it about her shoulders. It was easier not to look at Nancy while she talked, because what she had to say was perhaps just the least bit scandalous. She walked to the window and gazed out over the splendid view she’d promised Rossmere. “I had a great deal of physical contact with Richard. Not a consummation, of course, because of his illness, but we were very attracted to each other and spent a great deal of time together, and... things happened.”

“My word! I had no idea.” Nancy’s voice dropped to a whisper that barely reached her sister. “What kind of things?”

“They’re a bit embarrassing to describe. But let us say the sort of things that happen before the finale, the kissing, and touching, and hugging and stroking.”

“And did you like that?”

“Very much. You see, what would happen was most remarkable.” Jane finally turned to face her sister. “After a certain amount of contact, my body would react quite strongly, quite pleasantly. All the tension that had built up would float away on these waves of release. Have you never had that happen?”

Nancy frowned. “It has started to happen a few times, but then the finale, as you call it, sort of stopped it. If you see what I mean.”

“Precisely. Did you ever suggest to John that you were disappointed?”

“Oh, no! He was very certain that he was doing what he should. He rather assumed that I either wouldn’t care what happened or that I had the same sort of response that he had. And perhaps it’s not quite polite for a lady to be so involved. Every once in a while he would refer to my doing my duty. It has a very unpleasant sound to it, that word.”

“Doesn’t it?” Jane saw Rossmere riding Ascot along the road back to Graywood. She ignored the fact that her pulse speeded up at the sight of him. “Rossmere seems to think that the release should happen from his... well, from the finale, just as Parnham did.”

“So you think there’s something wrong with us?” Nancy asked, surprised.

“I don’t know. Perhaps. But does it matter?” Jane regarded her sister with an almost pleading expression. “Why shouldn’t we get pleasure from the encounter? I become quite tense awaiting the release, and when it doesn’t come, I feel incredibly irritable. You know me, Nancy. As a rule, I’m a very even-tempered person. But since I’ve been married I’ve felt very shrewish indeed. Couldn’t one’s husband make an effort to please one, even if one needed something different than other women?”